by Jana Jurkovich
This Thursday State Park Speedway hosts the 2nd annual Wayne 'Lodi' Lodholz Memorial Race presented by Aflac, Marathon Town and Country, Brian's IDK, and Harley Davidson of Wausau. Wayne Lodholz, or Lodi as he was called, unexpectedly passed away in August of 2007. Lodi raced locally at State Park Speedway for a number of years with his biggest career win coming at the 1989 Detjens Memorial Race. Last year the first Lodi Memorial race was held and this year Ron and Scott Wimmer are pleased to have it on the 2010 schedule. "To be able to remember Lodi, a great local racer is what the night is all about," says Scott Wimmer, "We are excited to continue to have the Lodi Memorial race at State Park Speedway."

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The biggest non-ANDRA event in Australia is the annual Jamboree Import race held at Willowbank outside Brisbane. Last weekend saw the twentieth running of the event with nearly 300 local import and turbo cars turning up to take on cars from New Zealand and Puerto Rico. However, shipping glitches saw Puerto Rican driver, Eddie Colon’s race car not arrive in time for the race and luckily local racer Dib Taouil made his car available.

Highlights of the event saw the quickest ever turbo time in Australia. Rob Campisi with his twin turbo Ford Mustang ran a series of quicker and quicker passes.

“It was a killer day at the drags off the trailer with a 6.38 then a 6.30 at 231mph and then a 6.28 at 233,” he said following qualifying. Race day culminated in a stellar 6.21. The car was built by local chassis shop SCR Race Cars that also had a hand in John Zappia’s 5.80 Top Doorslammer.

Talking of New Zealand, the pride of the shaky isles, Rod Harvey in his 2JZ powered Celica, won the Extreme bracket over George Rehayem’s Mazda with a stunning 6.41/224.21 pass. The speed apparently is a world record being the fastest ever recorded by import style car that we are aware of. (file photos by Jon Van Daal) [08/24/10]